[lit-ideas] Re: On Being Misinformed
- From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 16 May 2010 10:59:38 -0400
McEvoy:
"If JLS is maintaining that we should adhere to a stipulation that
"inform" only be used in the context of true information, then why
should we follow him? Because it is the Word of Grice? It conflicts
with ordinary usage which allows that information may be false as well
as true, and it advances nothing of philosophical importance - nothing,
at least, that cannot be gained by the simple expedient of
distinguishing 'true' from 'false' information."
----
Sorry. I got all your ´example´ wrong. I´m very bad at fiction, and the
fact that you proposed a fictional account where some information is
supposed to be "false", where in fiction, ALL is false, confused me.
But I stand by my right points:
For Kant, and for Grice´s maxim, "Try to make a conversational
contribution that is true", is never to be flouted consistently.
So, strictly, for Kant,
if a Gestapo officer asks a child,
"Are you Jewish?"
the possible answers, morally are:
"Yes, I am".
"No, I´m not"
as the case may be. No truth-value gaps allowed -- contra Strawson.
Grice notes that this feature of Kantianism he finds ´repugnant´ --
"Aspects of Reason", the Kant Lectures, at Stanford, Lecture IV -- but
does not expand.
It is difficult to argue with fictional cases.
Gestapo, to Anna Frank, in Dutch:
G: Are you Jewish, or a Jewish girl?
AF: No, I´m not.
If that had been the case, Anna Frank would be MISINFORMING the
Gestapo. But again, it´s best to deal with first-hand account rather
than with narratives. McEvoy´s narrative is fictional, Anne Frank´s is
not: She wrote a Diary about her recollections, etc.
------
McEvoy says that the information was "untrue" -- but since it´s all in
the context of a fictional story, I KNEW that.
-----
My point about "right" and "wrong" being moral (Yes, Palma, MORAL has
to do with this) has to do with the fact that we should AVOID those
labels, if what we mean is false stuff and true information.
Grice writes:
"False information is no information".
I wondered about that, and wondered if it was good prose. I thought
that perhaps a better version would be would scare quotes, alla
"That is not a ´flower´; it is a plastic flower."
But that is pedantic. ("False ´information´ is no information"). What
is not just pedantic but ungrammatical, for Grice and I, is to have
Strawson´s truth-value gaps in scare quotes:
The king of France is bald -----> "false" ´information´´
The king of France is not bald (in a scenario like today, in
republican France) --> "true" (i.e. redundantly so) information.
It would be otiose to rewrite the above as:
"The ´king of France´ (since he doesn´t exist) is not bald."
Analogously,
"False information, since it does not exist, is not information"
makes perfect sense and violates no conversational maxim.
McEvoy did say that the ´information´ of the child whose name is given
as "Hans Schmidt" and a "Lutheran" was "false". But he said that AFTER
providing the narrative and thus I skipped it. I think it is moral for
a writer -- even if fictional -- to state what "bits of stuff" are
UNTRUE, rather than us, readers, be told about that, as the narrative
proceeds.
--- Right and wrong belong to ethics, as Kant notes. Truth and
Falsehood to Epistemology. And Epistemology is the study of true
justified belief, which is knowledge, and knowledge, like information,
is always true, by definition. It is a necessary if not sufficient
condition for it.
For Kant, to give false "stuff" is always WRONG in the moral sense.
Given the importance of Kant in philosophy, I was suggesting that we
drop the use of ¨wrong¨ or "right" stuff when we just mean the much
more simpler concepts, "alethic", not practical as Grice has it, of
"true" and "false".
Etc.
J. L. Speranza
Bordighera
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